Thursday, August 31, 2006

A Tale of Two Rallies

The images of the different rallies taking place during President Bush’s visit are quite interesting. There was a very pleasant and happy greeting where 4000 plus people gathered at the airport and were authentically happy to welcome the President. Then there was the typical extremely well organized Bush-hate rally led by Salt Lake’s glorious leader Rocky Anderson.

America used to be the place were local political leaders would, as a representative of the community, greet visiting presidents. Even if they were in a different party. This thing where the opposition-party is so filled with hate that they stand on the court steps and chant partisan slogans during the President’s visit to American Foreign Legion Convention is just plain wrong.

Was Rocky Anderson’s choice to protest rather than greet the president something that Bush forced on Mr. Anderson, or was this a choice made by Rocky Anderson? Both of Rocky’s protests were at events that should have been unifying rather than partisan. Rocky protested at the Veterans of Foreign War convention and the American Legion.

I contend that Rocky Anderson’s decision to turn his back on the US President and lead a protest was a calculated moved to increase political tensions and divisions in this country.

There many, many, many things that I dislike about the Bush administration and about the Republican party (especially in Utah). The problem I have in the modern political landscape is that the truly virulent hate that is racking the nation is coming from the progressive left. And they’ve gotten worse in the last several years as we see with glorious leader in waiting Anderson.

BTW: I disagreed with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Yes, Saddam Hussein had committed genocide (close to 200,000 Kurds and other Iraq citizens were murdered by Hussein during Bill Clinton’s presidency). Even worse, Hussein was part of the cabal that was arming the terrorists in Lebanon. Imagine how much worse things would be if the Katusha rockets fired at Israel were filled with the chemicals that Sadam Hussein dropped on his own people. Hussein was a bad leader and the world is better with Hussein in cage. Unfortunately, in 2003 when we went to war, Hussein had skillfully answered enough of the UN demands disarming WMD stock piles that the justification for invading Iraq was just a dark murky grey, rather than a solid black. Faced with a murky grey, I wish we had taken an extra year to deliberate before invading.

Even though Bush sinned against my sensibilities by invading on a dark murky grey (as opposed to the clear solid black that I would have demanded) I am smart enough to know that Bush is not the source of hatred and fear that is gripping the war, and I find myself feeling more for the happy crowds gathered to see a president at the airport than those that joined Rocky Anderson at the City County Building in his partisan hate-fest.